Moana despite being six years old is still a wildly popular soundtrack if you look at some of these tracks from this thing I mean 1. 3 billion views that is just complete Insanity and I mean it's not just that I'm curious to see what the Rock sounds like singing but that is a perk hey guys you have just over one week left to get the ultimate intro bundle that's our intro to piano course our intro to improv course and the brand new intro to Theory course which is currently in pre-sale it's like a 360 value you can get it for 99 bucks but only for the next seven days so be sure to click the link in the description below and go check that out let's jump into this this is you're welcome 1. 3 billion views and you're staring at a demigod what can I say oh yeah okay I've heard that I've heard this part hey it's okay it's okay you're welcome Dwayne Johnson not too bad I'd be curious as to how much digital correction they did I mean clearly you can definitely hear some Tamara of his voice is quite nice well it's nice to see that humans never change okay interesting so we kind of have this like we're sitting on the sea major maybe maybe that's kind of the implication which is nice we're using this pedal [Music] it's probably just that that is such a nice chord there because obviously we just have you know C major but then when we play that chord what we're basically doing is we're layering B-flat major over C but what it actually does the function the way it changes C is it turns C into this seven chord right because we have now not defined whether it's major or minor we have a sus chord so essentially what it consists of is our root our second our fourth and our flat seven our dominant seventh and that chord right there because we haven't said whether it's minor or major it's suspended we don't know yet that's what the whole point of a suspended chord is and so voicing it like this we have this Triad over a root note and the easiest way to think about it is it's just B flat over C but it's important to understand what that's doing is it's taking this settled feeling like this is home base cool and it's giving it this sort of like oh now where are we going we don't know yet it's suspended we're using our dominant seventh our suspended fourth and our suspended second great Court really really nice [Music] okay so real simple now that is maybe the only thing that kind of sticks out a little bit but real simple just minor six four one we wouldn't normally expect to hear a five chord here this is one of those four chord pop aggressions that's just incredibly common amongst so many different types of music and of course this is one of those things that lin-manuel Miranda has always been really good at which is taking things that are rooted in influences that are relevant to the film in this case the Polynesian influences and of course the work that they did with opataya Hawaii as well as Mark mancina three of them together have essentially taken a lot of these Hawaiian and Polynesian influences and basically formed them into Pop I mean that's a big reason why with Scott 1.
3 billion views now is it that interesting harmonically really like could we sit here and take apart the harmony be like wow this is really unusual because it goes from here to here to here not really I mean to be honest it's it's very just like yeah okay that is what it is and it's simple and it works and it's done very well but that is often where the Brilliance lies that's often where you create a hit that winds up getting 1. 3 billion views I still sometimes have to try to stop myself from falling into this trap of like well it's just doesn't have enough to it it's not complex enough sure I'll bet you could dive into incredibly in-depth complexities of Polynesian and Hawaiian music but it probably wouldn't result in 1. 3 billion views on a single hit and as we've seen in other works like Encanto this is something that lin-manuel Miranda just knows how to do really really well hey do you want to get some brand new music recommendations as well as some tips and tricks and even an exclusive Vlog well we've been doing that over on the set break it is our newsletter that you can subscribe to completely for free there's a link in the description go check it out [Music] all right so that one chord the only thing that separates this from the typical four chord pop aggression foreign that's what we expect to hear typically minor six major four major one major five that's it and those are all diatonic chords meaning that they are the naturally existing chords if you were to take simply the c major scale and only build Triads using those notes right because the naturally occurring Triads within a scalar one is Major two is minor three is minor four is Major five is Major six is minor seven is diminished and that brings us back to one so we get just the stock chords that exist right minor six major four major one major five but this chord progression does one little thing that's different that is kind of clever and a nice way to give it a little bit of a unique sound after the six four one rather than going to the five we're going to set up the return to that minor six with its five right so let's talk about what that means let's go to a minor and let's just play one two three four five right we're gonna call A1 so a minor is our one chord in this if we were to call it in this key our five of a is what e right but what is a five chord typically is it minor no a five chord is almost always dominant it's always so it's almost always major with a flat seven so that's what we would have if we played a 2-5-1 going into a minor for example it might sound like this right and what we have here is simply just the five one in a minor that's all so instead of going from C to its five or the five of the whole key that we're in which is C major right instead of going here before turning around going back to the six we instead go to the five chord of where we're heading which is a minor so instead of going C to G we go from C to E7 before it turns back around very small very simple change using this what we call a subdominant or secondary dominant it's basically a dominant chord that doesn't naturally exist in the key we're making this uh we're making this chord dominant to lead us to that a minor to restart the phrase again check it out what can I say except you're welcome [Music] Hey Okay and then we just go back to the to the one fire from down below you're looking at him yo oh we're back to this [Music] talking about uh Dwayne Johnson's voice here again one thing I like about it is they didn't clean it up so much that it's just like annoyingly dead on there's a little bit of playfulness there there's a little bit of imperfection which I think just really adds to this scene I mean it adds to the character it adds to the playfulness of the scene if you don't want it to be so perfect and I think they did a pretty good job whatever they did touch-up wise they hid pretty well so what can I say okay back to the course again exactly there's no need to break okay so now what I'm listening for is I'm looking for a bridge I'm gonna see if it goes somewhere else that we haven't heard yet you're welcome and explain every natural phenomenon the tide the grass the ground so this is basically that bridge sprouted a tree now you got coconuts what for less and what is that so harmonically it's not really it's not really uh doing anything different but it's uh it is a bridge in the sense it's a new section and I almost guarantee we're gonna go right back to the chorus again don't mess with Maui when he's on a break away and the tapestry here in my skin is a map of the pictures I win now we're using the chords [Music] back and forth you're welcome yeah so it follows a very very common uh very tried and true form is there a ton in here for me to take apart as a musician and be like wow this is super interesting not necessarily I think it's really nice to hear some of these Polynesians these subtle Polynesian influences along with just the Simplicity that lin-manuel Miranda has been known to take great advantage of and create smash hits like this I mean it just goes to prove that you don't need to go to super complex lengths to get something that's going to be incredibly successful [Music] this has literally all of the makings of just an unbelievable Smash Hit from a Disney movie it's everything that you want to make kids just want to learn how to play this thing this like play it on repeat in the car forever there's a very easy way to do it it's a very Broadway style which is of course no surprise here [Music] [Music] do you guys know what that is come on it's our favorite chord on this channel it's the minor four chord we are in E Major right so we start that whole build up we start on the minor six chord c sharp minor and we're walking up with the bass line because what this really is this next chord is just B that's it but instead of using the b in the bass we use the third we use D sharp one chord up to a minor the minor four chord it's such a beautiful sound because it's not in the naturally existing diatonic Triad so once again in the key of E major we would have e major F sharp minor G sharp minor a would be major in its naturally occurring state in the key of E major right it would normally be this but instead we use that and it's just this it's the sentimental chord it's it's the one that always feels so beautiful no matter where you drop it and it works great here [Music] no one how far it goes typical popcorn progression a lot of suss there it is yes [Music] okay that's a really nice melody right there because it's a development it's not the first thing we didn't hear it the first time around um and this brings in the minor seventh which is just further dives into dives into this minor sound right uh because now we're using multiple notes that don't exist in the key of E major we have C and we also have G right so it makes that resolution extra satisfying and in some ways this is the Brilliance this is why this stuff has billions of views is because it is dead simple we're just using pop chord progression foreign that's pretty much the verse and then the chorus is just [Music] not a lot to it but again it just goes to prove the fact that you don't need a lot if it's done well it's satisfying it's it's something that most people can make predictions about and when your ear can make a prediction and have that prediction satisfied that is how you make a smash hit one of the frustrating things about being a jazz musician is that part of the reason that it's not popular is also the reason that we as musicians love it so much it consists of so many unexpected things it constantly is throwing something at your ears that you're like whoa I didn't think of that like oh I didn't see that coming and as a musician when you understand what you're listening for that is so satisfying it's so much fun to listen to music like that but the unfortunate part is if you're gonna put that out to a much wider audience of people who maybe don't have ears that are as educated you just wind up losing them and that's something that this soundtrack is clearly figured out and then of course once you add the context of the story which I'm I don't know so I don't have that added context here it becomes even more meaningful because that's what good movie score writing is all about and you know as simple and effective as this music is it is incredible how easy it can be for you to start learning how to play stuff like this on your own today and it's especially easy only for the next seven days with our ultimate intro bundle it contains three of our beginner level courses intro to piano intro to improvisation and the brand new intro to Theory course so even if you've never played the piano before we're going to start you off with intro to piano and teach you the basics of navigating this instrument once you've done that we're going to teach you with intro to theory about a lot of the building blocks that create music exactly like what we hear in Moana and then once we've established our ability to play this instrument as well some basics in building blocks of music we're going to take it to the next level and start working on teaching you how to play anything you want to on the fly with our intro to improvisation course it's a 360 value and it's available right now only for the next seven days for 99 bucks it's an absolutely insane deal that we're running and it's only available for seven days so be sure to use the link down in the description below or go to cornellmusicacademy.
